and he are wont to do, would soon make the powder flee out of his wig, and the pence out of his pocket. Nevertheless, I trust you will meet when you return from your rambles; for there is a time, as the wise man sayeth, for gathering, and a time for casting away; and it is the part of a man of sense to take the gathering time first. I remain, dear sir, your well-wishing friend, and obedient to command, ALEXANDER FAIRFORD. P.S.-Alan's Thesis is upon the title De periculo et commodo rei vendita, and is a very pretty piece of Latinity.-Ross-House, in our neighbourhood, is nearly finished, and is thought to excel Duff-House in ornature. LETTER X. DARSIE LATIMER TO ALAN FAIRFORD. THE plot thickens, Alan. I have your letter, and also one from your father. The last makes it impossible for me to comply with the kind request which the former urges. No-I cannot be with you, Alan; and that, for the best of all reasons-I cannot and ought not to counteract your father's anxious wishes. I do not take it unkind of him that he desires my absence. It is natural that he should wish for his son, what his son so well deserves the advantage of a wiser and steadier companion than I seem to him. And yet I am sure I have often laboured hard enough to acquire that decency of demeanour which can no more be suspected of breaking bounds, than an owl of catching a butterfly. But it was in vain that I have knitted my brows till I had the headache, in order to acquire the reputation of a grave, solid, and well-judging youth. Your father always has discovered, or thought that he discovered, a hare-brained eccentricity lying folded among the wrinkles of my forehead, which rendered me a perilous associate for the future counsellor and ultimate judge. Well, Corporal Nym's philosophy must be my comfort-"Things must be as they may."-I cannot come to your father's house, where he wishes not to see me; and as to your coming hither,—by all that is dear to me, I vow that if you are guilty of such a piece of reckless folly-not to say undutiful cruelty, considering your father's thoughts and wishes-I will never speak to you again as long as I live! I am perfectly serious. And besides, your father, while he in a manner prohibits me from returning to Edinburgh, gives me the strongest reasons for continuing for a little while longer in this country, by holding out the hope that I may receive from your old friend, Mr Herries of Birrenswork, some particulars concerning my origin, with which that ancient recusant seems to be acquainted. That gentleman mentioned the name of a family in Westmoreland, with which he supposes me connected. My inquiries here after such a family have been ineffectual, for the borderers, on either side, know little of each other. But I will doubtless find some English person at whom to make inquiries, since the confounded fetter-lock clapped on my movements by old Griffiths, prevents me repairing to England in person. At least, the prospect of obtaining some information is greater here than elsewhere; it will be an apology for my making a longer stay in this neighbourhood, a line of conduct which seems to have your father's sanction, whose opinion must be sounder than that of your wandering damoselle. If the road were paved with dangers which leads to such a discovery, I cannot for a moment hesitate to tread it. But in fact there is no peril in the case. If the Tritons of the Solway shall proceed to pull down honest Joshua's tide-nets, I am neither Quixote enough in disposition, nor Goliah enough in person, to attempt their protection. I have no idea of attempting to prop a falling house, by putting my shoulders against it. And indeed Joshua gave me a hint, that the company which he belongs to, injured in the way threatened, (some of them being men who thought after the fashion of the world,) would pursue the rioters at law, and recover damages, which probably his own ideas of non-resistance will not prevent his participating in. Therefore the whole affair will take its course as law will, as I only mean to interfere when it may be necessary to direct the course of the plaintiffs to thy chambers; and I request they may find thee intimate with all the Scottish statutes concerning salmon-fisheries, from the Lex Aquarum, downward. As for thy Lady of the Mantle, I will lay a wager that the sun so bedazzled thine eyes on that memorable morning, that everything thou didst look upon seemed green; and notwithstanding James Wilkinson's experience in the fuziliers, as well as his negative whistle, I will ven |